A 12 month survey for 2016 conducted by cart recovery specialists Optilead has identified that 81% of online abandonment is totally ignored. This means that in the tests, valued at £2.1m, a staggering £1.7m of abandoned transactions were not followed up.

Over the past few years, online sales have increased in the UK in excess of 10% per year – with this continued increase comes higher competition and the increased need to maximize each opportunity. Despite this, recent reports suggest $4 trillion worldwide would be lost to cart abandonment alone during 2016.

Summarising our Cart Recovery survey…

Marc Pearce, Multi-Channel Marketing Manager at Optilead said “It’s clear that the vast majority of ecommerce sites don’t have a clear strategy to re-engage with consumers that abandon online or would like assistance during the buying journey. Each of the 946 sites tested by Optilead could make significant gains by engaging with potential customers that abandon online – not only financially, but also by enhancing the customer journey and the brand experience overall.”

He continued “Having a campaign to send out an email following abandonment might satisfy the needs of a marketer looking to show something is being done. But, if time is taken to implement a real-time campaign that truly engages with the end consumer while they are still in ‘buying mode’, before they head off to a competitor, brands will increase sales.”

Optilead, who identify in excess of £100m of abandoned carts each week, know that by applying a real-time multi-channel approach consisting of phone, email & SMS, you can expect to see recovery rates from abandonment of up to 47%. But, more importantly by engaging instantly you will enhance your brand, increase consumer confidence, convert more business and the repeat or referral rates will be exponential.